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Speculative Fiction Essential Questions:
How can artists examine the society we live in by imagining alternative worlds? How does a dystopian society illuminate abuses in our society? How do communities espousing 'utopian thinking' become tainted? How can post-apocalyptic literature enable us to see the destroyed world and then understand the one we would want to survive in and re-build? How can speculative fiction serve as a warning to us about the future?
Can Utopia ever be achieved? Would we want it if it could?
Focus Texts: The Handmaid's Tale, Chernobyl, Deaf Republic, Choice Books
"A word after a word after a word is POWER"
The Handmaid's Tale Reading Schedule (click arrow)
The Handmaid's Tale Reading Schedule (click arrow)
Mon 1/9: Ch 1-6
Tues 1/10: Ch 7-12
Wed 1/11: Ch 13-15
Thur 1/12: Ch 16-19
Friday 1/13: Free Weekend- Catch Up
Mon 1/15: No School
Tues 1/16: No School
Wed 1/17: Ch 20-24
Thur 1/18: Ch Free Night- Catch Up
Friday 1/19: Ch 25-28
Mon 1/23: Ch 29-32
Tues 1/24: Ch 33-35
Wed 1/25: Ch 36-39
Thur 1/26: 40-43
Friday 1/27: 44-46
How does Atwood use the concept of PALIMPSEST in the opening chapter of the novel? What does this use seem to suggest about how the world has changed? Where do you see ideas from the video being played out in the text?
From Chs. 2-6, choose a quote for your Palimpsest page.
Handmaid Intro.pptxQuotability Journal Pages.pptx
Click the cover to read a summary and analysis of No Exit and more historical information about Sartre and the Existential movement.
In Jean-Paul Sartre's French Existentialist play No Exit, a man and two women find themselves in hell- which turns out to be a 40s era Paris drawing room (with no mirrors) where they must "wait" together for eternity. Through their conversations the three realize that in this hell, they will be the tortured and the torturers- of each other. The play explores themes of isolation, power, consciousness and self-reflection, deception, suffering, and cruelty. It also shares some common imagery and language with Chapter 35 of The Handmaid's Tale. As Offred waits in her room - certainly hell for HER- she considers how she is "blank... between parentheses. Between other people"- the last phrase a clear allusion to No Exit's famous last line- "Hell is other people."
This waiting meditation is followed by the entrance of Serena with a picture of Offred's daughter. While this seems to be a gift, it is in reality a form of torture.
The Existentialists bemoaned the "existential gaze"- the idea that we are constantly objectified by the world and that we cannot "see" ourselves without the gaze of another. Offred lives under a constant gaze- from the state, her 'partners', the Aunts and Wives, etc- and so struggles to see herself clearly anymore.
Yet the lack of 'gaze' from her daughter erases and obliterates her. She feels 'dead'- a word Sartre's characters shun in favor of the euphemism 'absent'. She needs her motherhood as a defining part of her self. The loss of it makes the other gazes even more torturous.
The connections to No Exit add layers of meaning to the scene's heaviness and despair.
Assessments- Creativity & FRQ3
Watch the trailer twice. The first time, watch intently without making notes. Listen closely. Take in the visual affect of the images. The second time, note how the tropes of dystopian fiction permeate the language and imagery of the trailer. Refer to your dystopian tropes list; based on what you've seen, what do you think might be coming?
"Yaka Tsina Brekhni"
This is what has always set our people apart:
A thousand years of sacrifice
in our veins
and every generation must know
its own suffering.
I am making my peace with it.
Now you must make yours.
To hell with our lives--
Someone has to start
telling the
Truth.
When this is over will they be looked after?
It must be done.
If you don't
Millions will die.
And if you tell me
That that is not enourgh
I will not believe you.
Station Eleven Limited Series Trailer
How does the trailer present the old world and the new? What images and words indicate the collapse of the previous world and the state of the new one? Are there dystopian tropes that apply? How does Station Eleven seem to be LESS dystopian, despite being an "end of the world" novel?
Hazen's Annotation: AFTER you've done your own, you can look at mine for additional ideas!
Now read the passage from the novel. Annotate for these same qualities. What is the tone of the passage? What details illustrate the lives of Kirsten and the Traveling Symphony? How are they connected to the past? What lines hold particular power or significance to you? Why?
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